At Gold Forum Americas, Newmont Execs Discuss Diversity in the Industry, Future Opportunities

Precious metals executives, institutional investors, hedge fund representatives and more gathered at the Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs last week for the 36th annual Gold Forum Americas to discuss the latest in mining equities, metals pricing and much more. Hosted by the Denver Gold Group, this year Newmont was represented at the event by Chief Operating Officer, Natascha Viljoen and Chief Financial Officer, Karyn Ovelmen.

Gender representation in mining was high on the agenda at this year's event, given that women still make up just 15% of the industry's workforce despite the fact that studies have found that companies with gender-diverse leadership are 25% more likely to outperform their least-diverse peers. At the end of 2023, Newmont's executive leadership team was 44% female and its senior leadership had a female representation of 33%; today females represent 50% of the team.

"Representation is at the forefront of who we are and take those metrics very seriously," Ovelmen said, "but it is a reflection of Newmont's values as well. The mere fact that Natasha and I are sitting here today representing the company, leading the company from a strategic, operational, and financial perspective, I don't think Newmont's commitment in that regard can get any clearer."

Viljoen expanded on this, acknowledging that the mining industry historically has been male dominated, supported by cultural norms, recruitment practices, and workplace conditions themselves. Still, her leadership position and that of Ovelmen represent a shift toward a more balanced and equitable workplace, reflecting a broader cultural change within the company and she remains proud of what senior leadership has accomplished in this area over the years.

"We know that we've got quite a bit of work still to do across our organization in continuously addressing gender bias," she said, "but we're already seeing the transformational benefits thatcome from diversity and inclusion."

A Strategic Focus on Assets

As of this week, the spot price of gold remains over $2,600 per ounce, continuing an upward trend that has lasted more than 10 years. Naturally, this has led to a lot of investor interest in the sector and excitement across mining in general. For Newmont, however, the focus remains on operational performance and curating the best portfolio of Tier 1 assets that have the scale, mine life and cost profile to sustain our business for several decades.

"The opportunity for us lies in operational excellence, technical expertise and maintaining the discipline to deliver on well-developed plans with an eye on the future," Viljoen said. "If you consider where we are as an industry and the trajectory that we see, the gold sector needs to be continuously planning and executing with the long term in mind."

She also shared a lesson that she learned from her father, who also spent a career in the mining industry, when she started her career: Go back and learn the best practices from the miners who created this industry to fully understand how they managed their operations. Technology, markets, the workforce and more have all changed, but those best practices remain foundational to successful asset management in precious metals.

Newmont's capital allocation strategy is a reflection of this operational mandate, linking economic value creation with day-to-day operations in order to consistently deliver strong shareholder returns. This involves not only running the business efficiently but also making informed decisions about capital investments over time, something with which the industry has historically struggled.

"We have a renewed focus on safety, operational execution, project execution, etc., but we also need to provide an economic lens for our portfolio," Ovelmen said. "How do we structure and run our capital allocation in ways that are truly creating economic value for our shareholders in the near term? This is an opportunity for us at Newmont. We need to run our business well, we need to meet our guidance every quarter, but most importantly we need to maintain that economic view on our return on invested capital."

Looking Ahead

Over the past year, Newmont has been integrating the assets from the 2023 acquisition of Newcrest, the Australian gold miner. This process, and other recent acquisitions, have enabled the company to reevaluate and optimize its entire asset portfolio, enhancing operational efficiencies and establishing a stable capital profile across the company.

"When we talk about our new assets, I have to highlight the fact that we have been able to get inside these assets and turn them inside out in ways that we have not done before," said Viljoen. "We have the opportunity now to look at our entire portfolio of assets holistically with the flexibility to build onto our operational model to support our sustaining capital profile."

Within the $200M synergy commitment from the Newcrest sites, Newmont is expected to see overall productivity improvements, reduced costs, and work toward economic margin expansion. The company is also working on a second tranche of projects, some resulting from the Newcrest acquisition, to make sure it is comfortable operationally with the technical details and its ability to execute before adding those new assets to the portfolio.

Added Viljoen: "As we see it, growth is about value, not about volume. One of the things that I appreciate about Newmont is the humility that we have in our leadership, which allows us to have some really robust and transformational conversations about what's good for our business. And what's good for our business is making an impact and creating value. With a strong foundation we are able to create the most value out of the capital that we have allocated, generating cash flow that we can return to our shareholders and make the right investment decisions based on value and not on volume."